A Yuletide Wallop Read online

  “This should just be on your regular menu,” Verny said with a satisfied hum after trying her quarter.

  “I think it’s too complex to keep on the normal menu, it takes a while to make,” Josie said, though she wished there was a way for her to have it on the menu permanently.

  “It’s worth the wait,” Lightening said with a nod.

  “I don’t usually agree with this basket case, but I do on this matter,” Cookie admitted. Lightening shot her a look. “It’s good, Josie, really good.”

  “I think it’s my best one I’ve done in a while,” Josie said. She was not normally one to toot her own horn, but she was proud of this particular creation. With their approval and after double checking that they had enough ingredients, Josie added it to the menu, at least for the day. They needed to make up for some of the business they lost, so Josie even brought out the chalk board to sit outside. Normally they didn’t put it out in the winter – it would fall over from the wind, slide down their street from the ice or more often than not there wouldn’t even be space for it on the sidewalk because of the snow.

  “How’s this?” Verny asked. She was an artist in her own right, where Cookie baked, and Josie cooked, Verny drew. She was also not half bad at thinking up slogans to put on the chalk board. A few of hers had even gone viral on the internet at one point, and Cici had been ecstatic.

  “It’s perfect,” Josie said with a smile. While Josie and Cookie prepped ingredients for the Sheppard’s Pie sandwich, which they hoped would bring in customers, Verny had designed a very eye-catching sign. At the bottom of the board she had drawn a winter scene complete with a snow storm and snowmen, Santa’s sleigh and reindeer flying above them. The top of the sign had the name of the sandwich and its price written in gorgeous calligraphy. The kind of penmanship you could only dream of having came naturally to Verny.

  “I guess all that doodling you did in my class came in handy,” Lightening said with a smirk.

  “More than your class ever has,” she retorted with just as big of a smirk on her face. “I’ll put this outside,” she said before Lightening could think of a reply.

  “It’s sure to bring people in,” Cookie said encouragingly. “If that doesn’t, then the bitter cold will.” She shivered as Verny opened the door. Though they hadn’t gotten a heap of snow yet, the temperature and wind were as bitter as ever.

  Chapter Seven

  “There’s no way that she did it,” Gideon said to Abel after walking Dotty out of the station. He had no idea how to move the case forward from this point. They had no luck finding their witness, or even the other Santa who seemed to disappear at the same time as her. Even if they did find them, he wasn’t sure what good it would do. They got the woman’s statement, it’s not like it would change.

  “Not a chance,” Abel agreed. After spending some time with Dotty, he felt bad for even indulging the idea that she would have killed her husband. She had already been a wreck before their interview had even started.

  “That was hard,” Gideon sighed rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. Abel nodded his agreement. He had been present for a few interviews with family member’s when he was a junior detective in the city, but none of them had been like that.

  “I didn’t do it,” she had sobbed to them. Dotty wasn’t ignorant to the rumors around town, and apparently Verny and Cookie weren’t the only ones who had come up with that theory. Too many people watched bad cop shows nowadays. “I swear to you I didn’t.”

  “We aren’t saying that you did,” Gideon assured her. “We just need to make sure we can prove that you didn’t.” This elicited more sobs from Dotty. She was normally a well put together woman – the kind of woman who wore shoes to match her bag and then matched her belt, and lipstick to match her nail polish. Now she had chipped nails, disheveled hair and she was in all black.

  “You never think that something like this is going to happen. Not here, not to us,” Dotty said, obviously traumatized by her husband’s sudden death. Gideon was the one who had told her about his death. He couldn’t stop thinking about that moment. He had known enough from her reaction then and there that she was innocent.

  “I know,” Abel said. They had to toe the line between compassionate and tough. At this point they had no idea how innocent or guilty she was. “What were you doing yesterday morning?” He asked.

  “Um,” Dotty said thinking back. It must have felt like yesterday morning happened ages ago to her. “I was getting my hair colored at Splitting Hairs. I have a standing appointment there every six weeks at 9am to get my roots done.”

  “Who was the appointment with?” Gideon asked her. “Just so we can verify it.”

  “It was with Angie. It’s always with Angie,” Dotty replied, sounding exhausted. “I swear to you both, I had nothing to do with this. Why would I want Al dead? I loved him. I’ve loved him our entire lives.” Abel nodded to Gideon and left the room quietly. He had to go make a call to the salon and confirm the whereabouts of Dotty.

  “There has been talk,” Gideon started gingerly. The last thing he wanted to bring up to Dotty was the relatively unfounded rumors about Al and Margie. She didn’t deserve it, if they were untrue it wasn’t a fair accusation and if it were true, it might sully the memory of her husband forever. She might be completely ignorant to it.

  “About Al and Margie?” Dotty asked surprising Gideon.

  “Yes, there has been some talk about the two of them,” Gideon continued awkwardly. “Perhaps the two of them were more than friends?”

  “Not possible,” Dotty said, her mouth forming a thick line in annoyance. “They had a short fling when we were in high school, but it was nothing more than that and nothing since then.”

  “I don’t want to be rude, but how can you know that for sure?” Gideon asked more gently than you might expect from such a burly man.

  “I can, and I do know for sure,” Dotty insisted. “He and Margie were nothing more than friends. I know Al, we loved each other. We were happy,” she choked out. She was an absolute mess, as anyone in her position would be.

  “I don’t deny that,” Gideon replied. “I know some people saw Al and Margie together, hugging,” He coughed uncomfortably. “Can you explain that?”

  “Margie hand makes blankets. She weaves them on a loom in her home, I’m sure that you know that. They are quite good, better than those factory-made things you buy at stores. She’d become well known for them and I have wanted one for years, but they are quite pricey, justifiably so. Al had saved up to get me one for Christmas, that’s probably what they were meeting about,” Dotty said with a shrug. There was no suspicion in her, no hint that she thought something else could have even possibly been going on.

  “If it was for Christmas, how did you know about it?” Gideon questioned. He didn’t want to be too hard on the woman, but he have to be thorough. She seemed to have an alibi. True, Abel hadn’t finished confirming it yet, but she had given enough detail that Gideon felt like it couldn’t be a lie.

  “Well, he told me about it,” Dotty scoffed at him. She was quickly becoming annoyed by the questions. It all felt like too much to her. She had lost her husband, and now this. “He wanted to check with me on the design. Al was hopeless when it came to taste,” she was sniffling again. Tears brimming in her eyes again. “You know I bought him all his clothes from the time we were seventeen years old?” She asked rhetorically.

  “I know this was hard for you,” Gideon said. It had been hard for him too. As he was speaking Abel joined them once more.

  “Nothing in my life has been harder,” Dotty said quietly in agreement. She couldn’t imagine her life without Al. He had been her constant companion since they were young, even when they went through a rough patch, she knew he was always there for her.

  “Everything checks out,” Abel said with a nod.

  “I thought it would,” Gideon said nodding back at him. He gave Dotty a reassuring smile. She was weeping still but smiled through the s
adness.

  “Can I go now?” She asked weepily.

  “You can go now, thank you for all your help,” Abel said.

  “I have one more question,” Gideon said as they were all getting up. “Do you know if anyone would have wanted to hurt Al? Did he have any enemies?” Dotty shook her head after thinking for a moment.

  “He had no enemies,” she said with a shrug. “I can’t think of anyone who would ever want to hurt him,” she sobbed.

  “We know that when Al was younger, he wasn’t exactly what you would call a gold standard citizen,” Gideon stated awkwardly. Dotty immediately became stony and sat up straighter. Her lips pressed into a hard line. “Could he have fallen back into gambling or drinking?” he asked. She was already shaking her head.

  “Impossible,” She replied. “He was a changed man. Al has been sober since he was in his twenties. He doesn’t even watch sports for fear of falling into betting again.”

  “So, as far as you know, he wasn’t back to his old ways?” Abel asked.

  “As far as me or anyone else knows,” Dotty replied. She didn’t like the accusation that Al might have been gambling or drinking without her knowledge.

  “Were you aware of it when it first started?” Abel asked, wondering if maybe Al had kept it from her once. It wasn’t impossible that he might do it again.

  “I was,” Dotty said with ice in her voice. “I knew what was going on from the moment it began. When you’re with someone your entire life, you don’t get the luxury of keeping secrets from one another.”

  “So he didn’t owe any money to anyone?” Gideon asked for extra clarification.

  “We don’t even owe money on our house any longer. We don’t have credit cards. We own our cars out right. He didn’t owe a cent to anyone,” she insisted. Her voice cracked when she referred to Al with the past tense. “The only person you might say he owed money to is that old insufferable codger, Ed. He lent Al a lot of money when he was still in the thick of it, and Al didn’t use it for the intended purpose–.”

  “You mean he spent it on betting and alcohol?” Abel interrupted her.

  “Yes,” she replied...the ice was gone and replaced with sadness and exhaustion. “That’s what I mean. I had told him not to give the money to him, but he insisted. When things turned out the way I told him they would, he got mad. It would have taken us decades to pay him back what he gave Al. Times were tough. When Al got better, and he got onto his feet, he tried to make amends, to pay him back, but it was too late, and he wouldn’t take it back.”

  “Why not?” Gideon asked. He was surprised that Lightning's story was true, he’d always believed that the man told legends and lies most of the time. Though it appeared he had left out part of it – the past where Al tried to pay him back.

  “I don’t know,” Dotty admitted. “I think that he wanted a reason to hold his grudge.”

  “You’re sure that nothing could have come back up from his past? Maybe someone else held a grudge too?” Abel interrogated. “Someone who might be violent.”

  “I never knew who he owed money to,” Dotty said with a sniffle. “I only know that it was paid back, and we never had to think of it again. It can’t have been someone from his past – why would they wait 50 odd years to do something to him?” She asked.

  “Thank you,” Gideon said, in lieu of an answer to her question. It was a good one, but he had no answer for it. “You’ve been a huge help. I promise you that we’ll find who did this to Al, I’m so sorry for your loss.” Dotty’s eyes welled with tears as she thought about her husband. She was certain that nothing in his past was the cause of his death.

  “Thank you,” Gideon said.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help,” Dotty said still crying. “I wish I could think of someone, I want to find who did this. I just can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt Al.”

  “It’s okay, neither can we,” Gideon said. “We all knew him, and I assure you we all want to bring who did this to justice.” Dotty thanked him, though Gideon didn’t feel like he deserved it. He still felt guilty for all the questions he had to ask her. With that she was on her way. They had someone take her home as she was in no shape to drive herself home.

  With the conclusion of the interview, even after going over it, they were lost. They had nothing left to go off of anymore.

  “What should we do, boss?” Abel asked Gideon. They were sitting at their desks going over all the notes and evidence they had. It wasn’t much. They didn’t even have a murder weapon. All they knew was that blunt force trauma was what killed Al, but they didn’t know what object had been used. Whoever killed him had either brought it with them and made sure to take it with them.

  “I don’t know,” Gideon said, he was at a loss. “What would the big shots in the city do in situations like this?” He asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Abel admitted. “They didn’t really clue me in on a lot of things. They weren’t exactly the greatest teachers. I was mostly a coffee or errand boy for them.” He was embarrassed to say so, especially considering his injury.

  “What if we outsource some opinions?” Gideon asked. “It’s not exactly conventional, I know.”

  “What do you mean?” Abel asked, unsure of what Gideon was getting at.

  “Maybe we can let a few people in on what we know and see what they think?” He said it as a question. It wasn’t only unconventional, but it also went against policy. They shouldn’t give information out about an ongoing investigation. “I only mean Josie, Verny and Cookie. I supposed Lightening would have to be included as well,” he clarified.

  “I’m not sure,” Abel said with a grimace. “It could be useful. We can say they are consultants on the case. We need some more ideas,” He agreed.

  THE SHEPPARD’S PIE sandwich turned out to be a pretty big hit. Almost everyone who came in had ordered the new sandwich. The sign had brought in a decent amount of foot traffic as well, and they were busy all through lunch. It slowed down quite a bit as soon as the lunch rush was over though.

  “You all look beat,” Gideon said as he marched in through the door. As Josie had predicted, the sandwich took a long time to cook, and was difficult. The rush had exhausted them all. “Get a big lunch rush?” He asked.

  “Huge,” Josie said with a grin. She was tired but grateful. “Verny’s sign out there brought in a lot of people.”

  “It wasn’t the sign,” Verny said with a shake of her head. “It was how good your new recipe is.”

  “New recipe?” Abel asked sounding excited. “What is it?”

  “Sheppard’s Pie sandwich,” Josie replied with a satisfied nod.

  “I’ll take one,” he ordered eagerly.

  “What about you?” Josie asked Gideon. They were in later than usual, which she was grateful for. She wouldn’t have gotten the chance to spend time with them during the lunch rush. Their arrival was always a welcome break in the day.

  “I’ll take a grilled cheese,” he replied.

  “Coming right up,” Josie said with a nod. The deli was empty except for them at this point. Even Lightening had left, once they got busy, he took it as his cue to leave.

  “So Dotty is innocent,” Abel said with a sigh. He and Gideon filled them in on all that they learned from Dotty. How she was innocent and had an alibi, and the fact that she and Al were very happy and about the blanket they had commissioned from Margie. They had even followed up with Margie and confirmed that they had ordered the blanket. Margie was terribly sad about Al’s death, she was planning on finishing up the blanket free of charge. She just couldn’t make Dotty pay for it, not after what happened.

  “You’re sure?” Verny asked.

  “I thought so,” Cookie said with a self-satisfied smile. She had a new theory, one she hadn’t let anyone else in on. She had no evidence, no proof for it at all but something in her gut told her that she was right.

  “You did?” Verny asked skeptically.

  “You didn’t seem to think
so earlier,” Abel said shaking his head. It was hard to follow Cookie’s train of thought sometimes. It moved so quickly and jumped from idea to idea in a way that few people could understand. Even Verny found it difficult to deal with and she knew Cookie better than most anyone.

  “Well, now I do,” Cookie replied putting a hand on her hip.

  “Can you close up for a bit?” Gideon asked Josie who looked confused.

  “Why?” She asked.

  “We want to talk to you all about some details of the case, see what you all think about it,” Gideon sighed. “We just don’t know where to go from here.”

  “Yeah, we can close up for a bit, we won’t get much more traffic until dinner time anyway,” Josie said nodding to Verny who turned the sign around to closed. For good measure she locked the door. It seemed like they were about to learn some top-secret information and they wanted to treat it like that.

  “Thank you, Josie,” Gideon said. “I don’t want you to lose business, but we shouldn’t really be telling you all this anyway, so we definitely don’t want this to get out past these doors. Lightening can be filled in too,” he added.

  “His most recent theory is that the town’s curse is what killed Al,” Verny said with a grimace and an eye roll.

  “He’s back on that train again?” Abel asked with a grin.

  “Oh, so he’s already told you,” Cookie laughed.

  “More than once,” Abel nodded with wide eyes. “What about your theory?” He asked Cookie. “I’m sure that you have one.”

  “It’s definitely just a theory,” Cookie said. “I have no evidence, and no proof. Just an idea.”

  “Out with it,” Gideon said impatiently. He wasn’t in the mood to tiptoe around things. They had no evidence and no proof of anything right now, what they needed were theories they could look into.